Dungeon Trouble (3)

Sounds of rattling and crawling could be heard as soon as Will shouted.

Everyone, after the door closed, was fixated on the door so no one noticed the undead until now. As the sound of rattling and crawling came, everyone, fully alert of their surroundings, turned around to see a bunch of undying-skeletons and zombies of all types. Some crawling on the ground, or missing parts of their bodies, but there were also zombies that had every part of their bodies intact. This could also be said about undying-skeletons.

What the group was more fixated towards were the undying-skeletons that had different types of equipment on them, some had helmets, while others had swords. It would be a terrifying thought if the skeletons knew how to wield the sword as it meant that they had, even though not by a lot, a developed intelligence.

No words were spoken and Max and the others were ready to fight against the bunch of undead that came their way.

In their temporary formation they dared not to move forward, which was a mistake as they didn't have any way to retreat backwards and were now stuck at the beginning of the hallway as the undead came closer.

"Everyone! We have to fight!" Max yelled, trying to motivate everyone into fighting. "If we don't we are going to be dead for sure, if we fight we at least have a chance!"

And with those last words, the first undead struck Max's shield.

It is needed to know that Max this time was wielding his shield with his right hand, and the spear with his left. The exact opposite of how he would normally fight. Even though healed, his bone might crack and break again, which may become a permanent injury at that point.

Even though the undead didn't have a fighting tactic or even intelligence, they were still hard to deal with as their strength was over what a normal human could produce, which Max experienced first-hand.

A *thud* sound was heard as the undead hurled his fist towards Max. Max blocked it with his shield, sending a strong vibration through his body and pushing him back a little.

'Damn they are strong!' Max thought at that moment, but it wasn't anything like when fighting the boar that time. If he took a hit from the boar standing up alone like this, he would've been flying towards the wall.

Max took a few steps forward and thrust the his spear with all of his strength. It landed and the zombie got pierced into the stomach.

As he tried to retract his spear though, he felt something hard pulling on his spear. He looked at the zombie, which gripped his spear not letting it go out of his body.

An undying-skeleton appeared beside the zombie and, with the slender bones which made it's hand, it struck towards Max's eyes. Max protected himself once again with his shield but now had no idea what was happening as he was barely able to defend himself, placing his shield right into his face, blocking his field of view, which was a bad thing of course.

Another rattle was heard, along with a slashing sound and a thud. The zombie was still gripping the spear that was inside his stomach so Max could only move his shield unless he abandoned his spear.

As he moved his shield out of his face he could see Gwen, wielding her katana striking towards the neck of the zombie with the spear in his stomach. A falling skeleton head could be seen before another smaller thud sounded. Max moved his eyes where the head fell and could see the skeleton body just beside the head, which were now separated by Gwen.

At that moment Max felt the grip on his spear loosen so he pulled back the spear while glancing at what was happening. Gwen cut the neck of the zombie as she did to the skeleton, but what she didn't see was the zombie on her right, which was already going to pounce on her. Max pulled his spear backwards as fast as he could, aimed, and then throwed it with all his might. His spear went right past Gwen and struck the zombie right in his head. With a horrible sound the zombie went down along with a thud.

On the other side, about the same thing happened but it all went a bit better, Andrew and Margaret made a great team, one defending while the other mercilessly killed them. Unlike Max and some others, Andrew, Margaret and Gwen already knew that if you wanted to kill an undead you had to either cut their necks or break their heads, which severed the connection of death energy to the body, leaving the undead useless.

Andrew was stronger and knew how to wield a shield better than Max as he was a Shield Warrior, a class specialized in using the shield in both defensive and offensive ways. He was sometimes tanking the attack, then let Margaret hack down her halberd into their skulls, breaking them apart, or use the shield to struck their chest, pushing them backwards while not being able to be restrained as Max was.

Gwen retreated behind Max once again, nodding as to thank him. Max only had his shield now and he couldn't get to his spear, he needed the help of others to kill the undead now.

Max tried to mimic the ideas of Andrew, tanking some attacks while pushing some attackers away, so Gwen and Jericho could take care of them one at a time. Jericho moved between helping Max and Gwen to helping Andrew and Margaret depending on how many undead were coming their way.

Sometimes, some undead might slip from their attacks or the undead might deliberately avoid their attacks and go into their back lines, where Will was waiting for them. It was hard for him to just wait around while being tasked to defending the long-ranged fighters, so he welcomed any undead that dared to come his way.

The long-ranged fighters also didn't sit out of this one, even though not effective towards the undying-skeletons, they did their best, slowing down the zombies or rendering them immobile, while sometimes Anna could push them away with strong winds, which neatly avoided her comrades.

For Max and the others in the front-lines, the wind felt like a breeze, but for the zombies, and even for some skeletons, it felt like a tornado, almost making them fly backwards. It was understandable that the skeletons weren't that effected by the wind, their bodies being filled with holes, but that didn't mean that her help didn't come unwelcomed.

After about thirty to forty undead, equipped or not with some items, the team of ten didn't see any other undead coming their way so they started to feel better. As Andrew and Max took a breather along with Margaret and Gwen, Will went around, smashing the heads of the undead with his axes, killing them for good.

"That was something..." Will, after finishing bashing heads, addressed to everyone.

"I didn't know that at the undead you have to strike the head. I am sorry." Max apologized to Gwen.

"Don't worry, it wouldn't be me dying that time, it would've been you. Also, you saved my life as well, great throw." Gwen said with a smile on her face, truly thankful to Max. She didn't seem like it but she cared about her life a lot, so even though she saved Max as well, she didn't feel like it was enough to be called an equal trade-off.

Everyone was exhausted by the sudden fight, both physically and mentally. So they rested for a while before doing anything else.